Can We Talk? Good Communication Is A Challenge

September 15, 2003|By JOHN OWENS Special to the Daily Press

Bill Pritts has seen his share of workplace conflicts during his 13 years as a manager and consultant in Chicago's restaurant industry. More often than not, those conflicts would take place in the nerve center of a busy restaurant -- the kitchen.

"I had a head chef who was having a difficult time with anger," recalled Pritts, who has been a part-owner or general manager for restaurants such as Mia Cucina in Palatine, Ill., and Bob Chinn's Chicago location.

The chef would blow up at the line cooks if an order was not properly prepared or executed but had never spent time telling his staff about what the dish was supposed to look like and how to execute it.

"The head chef needed to communicate what his expectations were because his anger was really the result of these people not being trained properly," Pritts said. "Once he did that, the performances improved, and the head chef wasn't as angry."

Most workers, of course, recognize that effective communication is important in the workplace. Last year, for instance, a job-satisfaction poll from the Society of Human Resource Management and USA Today.com found that 62 percent of employees said open communication between employees and management was "very important."

Still, communication issues like the one described by Pritts are common.

"Establishing good communication is definitely a challenge on a job," said Terry Felber, the author of "Am I Making Myself Clear?" (Thomas Nelson, $10.99). "Most of us are involved with developing a relationship where your employer or colleague can gain trust in you. We want our co-workers to gain trust in us, and good communication is key to establishing that trust."

"Good communication is invaluable in the foundation level of a relationship in the workplace," said Corinne Miller, a director of Engineering, Learning and Development at Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola. "It's a way to remove roadblocks in a relationship."

But just what is good communication? People often confuse communicating with persuasion. Rather than a tell-and-sell approach, effective communication is more interactive, Felber said.

"Communication is about developing and building relationships," Felber explained. "This can only happen face-to-face, by talking, listening and observing."

Effective communication goes beyond words.

"You need to pay attention to the nonverbal feedback, the types of looks you get and the reaction to comments that you get," said Kathleen Galvin, a professor in Northwestern University's managerial communication program.

Felber said, "We have to constantly be aware of how we're looking to other people. If I'm getting nonverbal feedback that my colleagues are not receiving what I'm saying, maybe I should go in a different direction."

And sometimes it's how you say it, not what you say, that's remembered. Even when you're telling a co-worker "no," if you stick to the facts and separate the person from the task, so your refusal doesn't feel personal, you can be assertive without coming across as angry.

Felber also suggests being aware of your body language when engaging in a conversation with a co-worker.

"Mirroring someone is always a good thing to do," he said. "You're not doing this to manipulate people, you're doing this to develop a rapport. If your colleague has his elbow on the table, at some point you might want to do the same thing."

Being a good listener is important, too, Felber said. This listening process includes stopping to pay attention when someone else is talking, making eye contact with the person who is speaking and waiting until your conversation partner is finished before responding.

"If you talk at someone, that's not communication," he said. "Communication has to be received." It's also a good practice to summarize what you hear to minimize misunderstandings.

It's also important to recognize the organizational culture. "You have to determine whether joking around is important or whether it's frowned on," Galvin said. "Is this a workplace where ideas are batted around freely? What's the culture and how do you begin to fit into this culture?"

Workplace diversity also has to be recognized. "People from different ethnic backgrounds have different communication styles," Galvin added. "You've got to be able to adjust and figure out how to relate to a wide range of people who have different communication styles."

John Owens writes for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.